Dreamscape
by Hila
Summary: A Naruto/Hinata friendship fic. Nice, sweet and peaceful ^^


Title: Dreamscape  
Rating: G  
Disclaimers: all belongs to Kishimoto-sama, 'm not making money, 'm broke, really very broke so don't sue  
Author's notes: hmm, lesse. Lilas-neechan sent me the scanlations of Naruto up to manga 17 and when I finished it I was like "oooh, I can sooo see Hinata and Naruto become best friends, as in soul-mate best friends" so I HAD to write this fic! I mean, follow the reasoning, they obviously undertand each-other on some level that's pretty impressive for people who spoke to each-other about 3 times during their entire life, right? But they cannot be together simply because they'd lose patience way too fast. So yeah ^^;;;  
  
~*~*~*~*~*  
Dreamscape  
She had been a quiet, shy, overlooked child. She had become a shy, genteel, respected woman. Which is why she was the first person that he had gone to see when he came back. Not his friends, not his mentors but this shy girl, now married to a good man and bearing a beautiful daughter (who had, fortunately, inherited her mother's looks and her father's personality, as the inverse would have been terrible for a child), whom he had once totally ignored.  
  
They had become very close friends over the years. Her childhood crush on him quickly mutating into the deep, platonic, love that only two adults who wanted nothing of each other could share. They would spend hours together, silently soaking in each other's presence. They never talked much, it was never in her nature to babble insignificantly. They were together to rest and, in fact, when he would leave her he felt more rested and at peace with himself than he would have thought possible.  
  
Her husband, the good soul, had understood and left them alone. Leave it to her to marry the only man in the village to hold such compassion and understanding of the human nature. So much like her in that respect (if not in many others). They made the perfect match.  
  
So now, after so many years, he was lying on her couch with his head in her lap, as if they were still the same teenagers who had just survived the Chuunin exam.  
  
"Say, Hinata…what now?"  
  
She didn't reply: she didn't need to. He hadn't come to ask for her advice; she had never given him advice. Which was why he came. He didn't need her advice. What he did need was that calm smile that he could anchor himself to when his inner turmoil became too violent.  
  
"I missed you."  
  
A statement. A statement not requiring an answer. Indeed, he had come back only to see her and she had the right to know it. Oh he missed his other friends too, but he wasn't ready to deal with them yet. He had needed her above all. Her warm affection, her smile, her eyes, her silence.  
  
Anyone who knew him would have never thought that he needed silence, and truly, he didn't. Not that often. But she knew; she was his confident after all. And he had not seen her for so so long. He had never seen her daughter, now just entering the academy, he had never seen her marriage, he had never…never seen any part of her life after he left. Oh, they had exchanged letters, it was what had kept him going when things just became too much, but he had never seen her, never.  
  
Now, two hours after lying on her couch, he took her face in his hands and kissed her cheek.  
  
"Time to go face the world now, Hinata."  
  
She hadn't spoken a word. She never spoke much after the Chuunin exam. She'd made efforts, at the beginning, but now she was well installed in her silence. Her words were few and far between and reserved solely for her daughter. Not for him, he didn't need them, had never needed them. Not for her husband, he had never asked for them.  
  
He stood up to leave. He didn't say 'thank you', the time of 'thank you's had long passed between them, to the point where they were now implied in every look, in every gesture that they made in the presence of each other. He opened the door with the strength that she had given him and stepped outside.  
  
***  
  
He woke up. Why did he dream of that, of that particular moment? Why today? Oh, because it had been the first time that he'd seen Sakura, Hinata's daughter named in memory of their friend. She was now graduating from the academy, the ceremony was today and…and he was late. Some things never did change. Well, Sasuke would pardon him, wouldn't he? After all, they had spend so much of their lives in each other's pocket that he knew Naruto enough to assume that he'd be late. Even for Sakura's ceremony.  
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
A/N2: Sankyuu~ neechan for beta'ing! See people, if there are any grammar errors left it's because I needed this to sound a certain way, I'm a freak like that, I couldn't care-less about correct language if the words don't sound right (was taken to the extreme in "I fold my wings" -- auto publicity ^^;;;)  
  
Saa, what do you say? C&C please *bats eyelashes* 


End file.
